Ahmed's Pencil

This is the story of an Iraqi child who lived in the 90s. Going to school for the kid was particularly challenging since there was a shortage of pencils due to the sanctions imposed on the Iraqi government.

*There are many things that confuse me about the world.

*Like the extremes of climates hot, wet, dry and cold.

*The most confusing aspects are its dichotomies.

*Like the great divide between countries with rich and poor economies.

*I could spend hours pointing out these disparities but instead I'll focus on one.

*A boy who's path to learning had barely begun.

*Each child was given a one pencil a month and no more.

*If you lost that pencil you surely had a beating in store.

*Very much to Ahmed's dismay,

*his pencil grew legs and simply walked away.

*Whether he lost it or someone stole it mattered not.

*For either way his war torn parents would beat him over the head with a pot.

*And they did, but in reality Ahmed's education never really begun.

*See his world was filled with so much violence, that his pencil became a gun.

*One of countless children whose up bringing is devoid of fun.

*How is it that these stories doth our conscious wilfully shun?

*How can I? A man from the west,

*claim to be more civilized and advanced than the rest.

*When we are all actors in this tragic comedy we openly claim to despise.

*Yet our actions say otherwise leading to innocents demise.

*Oh Iraq how your present history brings us sorrow

*For those men, women and children in the headlines who will not live to see tomorrow

*How easy it is to hurt those we do not understand.

*So much so that to violence there maybe no end

*Over time more tragic events did unfold

*and Ahmed's heart began to harden and grow cold.

*Like desperate boxer who is up against the ropes

*Will and rationality fade when feed false hopes

*He was told that in order to arrive at paradise, away from all this convolution

*He had to blow himself and others up, which seemed like a simple yet convincing solution

*Convinced of his righteousness and determined with all his might,

*this warrior shall smite the heathens who ignore wrong from right.

*A busy market is a fitting place to exercise this divine act

*He thought of how his name would be martyred after the fact

*It is nearing the end of one's life when one is the most observant

*Ahmed saw people bartering and laughing, a scene where nothing seems too urgent

*Lively cafes where people emerge and converge

*Unaware of the chaos about to surge

*He heard the laughter of children which made him think of his childhood

*That boy who nobody understood

*May Heaven's hands hold our hearts high

*Away from that hatred which leads us to die

*In the moment just before he was about to pull the trigger an Angel appeared

*This was exactly what Ahmed's masters had feared

*The angel said in a echoing voice

*"Ahmed deep down in your soul you know this is the wrong choice"

*In that moment Ahmed had a vision

*Of a world without this senseless war of attrition

*He looked at the laughing children,which now where grown

*Clear evidence that the future is not written in stone

*They grew up to be doctors, teachers, philosophers with no limit to their will

*He saw them teach his children, and tend to them when they ill

*All the shrouds of hatred were rendered null

*By the realization the it is best to live life full

*Full of love, of hope, of reason, of the breath of life

*Things that see us through the greatest of strife

*And when all these virtues came a shore

*Ahmed was able to say to death "you rule here no more"

*And so Ahmed lived to see Iraq shine

*Thanks in part to the realization that all life is divine

That day Ahmed's paths forked before him. He saw the essence of the internal struggle we all face, ever so symmetrical: Our infinite capacity for hatred and love, madness and reason, apathy and empathy.

-IEMH Edit: Man formatting is tough! [1] (https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/3qijaz/oh_god/cwfhzhe?context=3) [2] (https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/3qhmb9/when_suddenly_closing_the_creed/cwfgwsg?context=3)